COMMUNITY BENEFITS AGREEMENTS: LESSONS FROM NEW HAVEN

Abstract

Community Benefits Agreements (CBA) are a new tool for labor‐community coalitions, designed to ensure that economic development projects benefits workers and residents. In 2006, a labor‐community coalition in New Haven, Connecticut won a CBA with Yale‐New Haven Hospital after a two‐year campaign, and much longer campaign to unionize hospital workers. The CBA included provisions for affordable housing, job training, local hiring, access to healthcare, environmental and planning protections, and a commitment to union‐organizing rights. This article analyzes the campaign for the CBA and examines some outcomes, including its implementation. The CBA campaign was successful in building labor‐community alliances and political power, and had resulted in some concrete gains for residents. However, the Hospital has blatantly violated the union‐organizing rights part of the agreement, highlighting some of the limits of the CBA strategy in the face of a hostile employer.